I found an excellent essay online - Europe's Dark Shame, written by Roger Smith. It gives an accurate history of the Church's role in supressing Paganism, and make very interesting (if disturbing) reading!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/F16..._returnto=c3253

It can be found on BBC Action Network.

Yup, "The Vatican's Holocaust" is just about right as a title to describe the outright extermination of Paganism all across Europe. Pretty much the same hate campaign as Hitler conspired against anyone who even so much as dared to tolerate anything Jewish- and thus systematically burned books, destroyed artifacts and killed the people, every step of the way of usurping Europe into one great utopian empire under the title of "master race". Particularly scarey is how such megalomaniacs actually envision themselves as some divine power over human destiny...and it always seems to end in the kind of paranoid rhetoric that breeds its own enemy within.

There's a bit of a gap in the article which concentrates very much on what happened in Rome and the Eastern Empire but has nothing to say about the activities of St Martin of Tours in Gaul, St Patrick and his contemporaries in Ireland, the forced Christianisation of Northern Germany by Charlemagne, and the Crusades against the pagans by the Teutonic Knights on the Baltic, quite enough desecration and oppression there for anyone.

But there's also a non sequitur - I'm not sure whether the enforcement of canon law was explicitly aimed at the suppression of Paganism per se - after several centuries most people would have considered themselves to be Christians, even if their personal behaviour didn't live up to the requirements of the Church and even if social customs did include a large component of unauthorised belief.

gwyn eich byd

Ffred

It is appaling isn't it what has been done in 'God's' name!! So much for a God of love eh?

Just one question - "Sodomy - a contraceptive method using the legs was also such a heinous sin!" you what?

"It is appaling isn't it what has been done in 'God's' name!! So much for a God of love eh?"

Ah, but there are those who would argue that it has nothing to do with God - it's just men's greed for power.

The Christian God doesn't bear much resemblence to the God of the Old Testement, who was a paranoid, schizophrenic, unjust, unloving, miserable, untrustworthy bugger.

As a child I grew up brainwashed into thinking only good of the Church, I find this read absolutely fascinating. It took a move of some 3000 miles and an entirely different environment for me to see the light.

My pet peeve is the Vatican: as long as we really don't know what is hidden in the Vatican Library we'll never know the entire truth. One thing we do know for sure, and that is that the Catholic Church has plenty of facts and knowlege to hide ("what the 'faithful' don't know won't hurt them"). Maybe it won't hurt the "blindly faithful," but in modern times more and more intelligent faithful are becomeing educated. As they wake up to the facts they are beginning to ask pertinent and knowlegeable questions.

All's the more is it important to get those hidden truths out in the open.

Johanna

How do we know they haven't destroyed some of the more damaging (in their view) books?

I don't think the Vatican wants anyone to develop spiritually, all they want is to stay in power.

I remember some discussions on TV when the current Pope was elected. People were asking this guy (who apparently was an expert on the church and the Vatican in particular, can't remember his name though) if maybe now was the time the catholic church would introduce some changes. He replied that he didn't know what everyone was thinking, seeing that the church DID NOT WANT to change anything and was quite happy to continue doing everything in its own, set way.

Yup, the blighter's real name is Ratzinger, of the same Ratzingers trying to corner the Bavarian beer market with his illicit blessings...but being as the stuff still tastes like dog piss, the company's been reprimanded for consumer exploit!

Catholicism is still only one small part of christianity, and although it remains powerful in many parts of the world the main thrust of its power was destroyed during the Reformation.
I think too much exposure is given to the catholic church and its history. Why give them the oxygen of publicity? It's an institution so far up its own bottom that it's just too easy to knock down now.
Far more worrying for me are the fundamentalist, non-conformist, protestant antinomian (strike out words which do not apply) sects who have no interest in worldly wealth or power, only that everyone lives and worships as they do.
They do not see the catholic church as forming any part of their own spiritual heritage and bear as much relation to it as Charmed does to reality. ( Oops I see armies of fluffies waiting to strike me down with a plume of White Light...)
For them the word is the word is the word, was the beginning, and is god. End of. They do think about what they believe, not just recite Latin, and they know that evil is out there in the form of anyone who is not one of them, be they catholic, muslim, pagan or jedi. They are also more subtle in their approach, preferring to use scepticism and contempt to convince others. No mad buggers with unfeasible beards exorcising nuns there.
This here is a bit wordy and may well be completely off the point but it was a bit interesting.
Badger's Moon off to don flak jacket...
xx

He he, Tas is cackling at the responses here!

But, Badgersmoon, you wrote, "Far more worrying for me are the fundamentalist, non-conformist, protestant antinomian (strike out words which do not apply) sects who have no interest in worldly wealth or power, only that everyone lives and worships as they do." <--HMmmm...

I'm not so sure. ! Take a look at the way American politics (Tas pauses to spit) are currently going. I think they have some downright dangerous holy rollers in office who would just LOVE to combine wealth/power with their twisted dogma. We are only a short step away from the sort of world wide "holy" wars of the bloody Crusades as it is!
Can I borrow your flak jacket please?

But I'm a bigot and I don't consider them to be christians... I think they're just opportunists who use religion as an election tool. If Wicca was the predominant religion on the North American continent those guys would have the biggest pentacles in town instead.
I join with you in the spitting.
Badger's Moon
xx

He he, I've just had a brainwave - how about we start the United Church of Bigotry?
Now, what sort of Commandments would we need? Ah! (<- Tas having a lightbulmb moment!)
1) Thou shalt hate all Gods but this one. Whatever we decide to call it/him.
2) Thou shalt not worship improperly, i.e. without first assuming a snarling grimace.
3) Thou shalt not swear incessantly. (Fuck, that's me buggered then!)
4) Thou shalt observe only what WE say thou shalt observe. Full stop.
5) Thou shalt observe the tenets of thy parents and teachers always. Or else they shall BEAT ye to a PULP>
6) Thou shalt not inflict pain or injury on another person. Unless of course they be of OTHER faiths. Then it is O.K.
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. But it is O.K. to shaft non-believers, backwards if need be, and with a brick.
8) Thou shalt not steal. But it is O.K. to deprive 3rd World people of medicine, aid etc. And anyone else that is not of the faith.
9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour - unless they are gay, foreign, or of another faith. Or disabled.
10) Thou shalt not covet anything. Why should you need to? You are right, they are wrong, you are therefor powerful and can rule the world.
(Yah, boo, sucks!)

Love it Tas - can I sign up to be the first clergyman?

Do I get to play with the altar boys?
(e.g. David Tennant... Russ from hollyoaks.....)

Sorry, no can do here, already signed up with the FIRST CHURCH OF APPLIANTOLOGY and just cornered the market with a new design of those special vibrating magic wands!

Woo-hoo! Me for pope! Am away off now to design the robes. I shall get Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen to design the altar and I want that bloke who built the Gherkin to design the first cathedral.
Badger's Moon
xx

and supposing you decide that your god is a woman??? you fundies, you - youv'e forgotten the sacred feminine (sp???)

PS can i ask for one more commandment to be added to the list pls?

I am woman and my word is law, especially in my own home (a;; kids and husbands take note!!! )